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"States Explore Green Banks To Reduce Risk of Clean Energy Projects"

"After funding fiascos like Solyndra and facing constant political attacks on government clean energy investments, renewable energy advocates are now zeroing in on so-called green banks to finance clean energy projects and to get states to cut fossil fuel use."

"To that end, the Coalition for Green Capital has launched the Green Bank Academy to begin teaching interested states how to move toward a green bank model pioneered by Connecticut and more recently New York.

'There are major financing gaps in almost all clean energy markets, and you know something has to give, since the whole subsidy-based develop-deployment model of the last decade is really probably collapsing, and not only are generous subsidies under widespread threat of attack, but in fact they've already been severely downsized,' said Mark Muro, a senior fellow and director of policy for the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution."